Robotic Building Lab

In the Robotic Building (RB) Lab, research and education activities (incl. graduation projects) are implemented with the aim of developing Design-to-Robotic-Production and -Operation (D2RP&O) methods that advance robotization in architecture. Robotization is explored as resulting from human-computer and human-robot interactions where the manufacturing plant, the building site and the buildings themselves operate as cyber-physical systems within the larger Internet of Things and People.

Approach

Design to Robotic Production and Operation (D2RP&O) research and education activities are structured in additive, subtractive, and transformative workshops held in the lab. D2RP&O workshops are aimed at integrating different modes and methods of robotic production and operation into computational design processes in order to explore multi-performative systems in architecture. The workshops focus on developing D2RP&O methods for hybrid material systems, from micro to macro level as spatial, structural and architectural configurations.

When environments incorporate sensor-actuator mechanisms that enable buildings to interact with their users and surroundings in real-time, their conceptualisation and materialisation process requires D2RP&O chains that link design to production and operation of buildings. In this context, design becomes process- instead of object-oriented, use of space becomes time- instead of program- or function-based, which implies that architects design increasingly processes, while users operate multiple time-based architectural configurations emerging from the same physical space that may physically or sensorially reconfigure in accordance to environmental and user specific needs.

D2RP&O relies on interactions between human and non-human or cyber-physical agents and systems not only at design and production level but also at building operation level, wherein users and environmental conditions contribute to the emergence of multiple architectural configurations.